The denotative aspect of a lexeme's meaning as a language unit of modeling the cultural space in a literary text

The paper aims to identify and analyze the ability of the denotative aspect of the meaning of a lexeme to model the cultural space in a literary text. We provide an analysis of the concepts of cultural space and a linguocultureme as a unit that models the cultural space in a literary text. The study examines the relationship between a lexeme and denotatum contributing to the formation of a linguocultureme in general and the modeling of cultural space in particular. Using the method of continuous sampling, we selected examples of lexemes whose denotative meaning determines the formation of linguistic culture and the modeling of cultural space in Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Tyll. With the help of linguoculturological analysis and the modeling method, we studied how a lexeme’s denotative meaning influences the identification of elements of cultural space in the literary text. The frequency of references to denotata expressed by linguistic units, their compatibility and the connection between the denotative meaning of a lexeme and the presupposition appear to be important aspects in the analysis of the cultural space modeling in a literary text. In the course of the study, lexemes that carry culturally significant information at the denotative level were found to endow other linguistic units with linguocultural potential, raising them to the rank of linguistic means of the cultural space modeling. At the same time, an increase in the number of methods for modeling the cultural space contributes to its expansion within the framework of a literary text. From a theoretical perspective, the research is significant in that there has been developed a model for analyzing the denotative aspect of the meaning of a lexeme in order to identify the elements of cultural space in a literary text. The research results are valuable both for the theory of language in general and the theory of cultural linguistics in particular.